bad to the bone
by edeabeth
Summary: The reality is that Norman's just a kid who's been abused and hurt his entire life and Dylan can't watch Norma wreck him any longer. (au in which he takes custody of his brother.) (abuse)


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"I'm bad to the bone, kid."

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The reality is that Norman's just a kid who's been abused and hurt his entire life and Dylan can't watch Norma wreck him any longer. (au in which he takes custody of his brother.)

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(I liked Jody. I kept her around.)

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Norman glared out the truck window as Dylan drove out of the town. "You can't take me away." He informed him sullenly. Boxed belongings rattled behind them as Dylan sped up outside of town. "This isn't right."

Dylan didn't bother to look at his brother. "You know, it wasn't right that Nora didn't try to get help for you? She's poison, kid."

For the past two months he had been filling out paperwork to transfer guardianship and the truth of Norman's condition had only helped his case. While at the hospital after having rescued him from the hot box the Doctor's had noticed abnormalities once Dylan had mentioned them. Norman had been revealed to have a variety of medical conditions as well as a mental disorder that could be helped with a series of pills. "I don't care."

"You have asthma. She knew, actually. Apparently she had an inhaler for you the entire time. But you could have had an asthma attack and never known it."

"So?"

Dylan braked hard, not even checking if anyone was driving behind them. "You could have died. Do you know what that means? You would be dead."

Norman shrugged. "So what?"

He sighed before turning back to the road and removing his foot from the brake. "Listen, things are different now. Norma was ruining you."

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The house Dylan had bought was two towns over from the motel. It was near impossible for Norma to ever find it as Jody had placed it under her name after the events that had left Zane dead and her nearly. The building was mostly furnished and Dylan had taken care of the rest while Norman was detained in the hospital.

Norman had resentfully helped unpacked their belongings, shoving the few books onto shelves and dealing with kitchen ware. Dylan had cautiously asked him to pick a room from upstairs, unsure of the reaction he would receive. Norma had always placed Norman beside her and his room at the house gave him no privacy as it was connected to her room. Dylan listened as he inspected each of the three bedrooms, footsteps revealing Norman's actions.

Eventually he decided on the one room with the empty bookshelves, silently claiming it as his own by moving his boxes into the space. Dylan didn't bother him until late afternoon and only to ask if he wanted take out.

The pills he had to take required that Norman ate properly as well as restricted his ability to drink alcohol. Dylan had been advised to ensure that Norman followed a proper eating schedule, something that had been rather limited under Norma's watch. While she enjoyed cooking she had often shunted proper meals aside in favour of working on the motel and doing basic repairs to the house.

Dylan ordered Chinese food and waited for Norman to return to the kitchen where there was a small table. They sat awkwardly together, Norman fiddling with a pen. "Why do you do that?" He asked as Norman kept clicking on the plastic pen.

He shrugged. "Habit, I guess." He went to put the pen down but Dylan shook his head.

"Don't stop. Was just wondering."

"Why?"

"I'm trying to figure you out."

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Dylan keeps working around the motel because he doesn't have any other options. Sometimes he catches a glimpse of blonde hair and scowls and always turns away because he doesn't want to deal with her.

She's been enraged when he used legal tactics to transfer custody and had been spitting threats of violence ever since. The town had grown painfully numb to her insults and angry rants, but he had wanted to keep his distance and work with his head down.

It had been nearly three weeks since they moved out when she catches sight of him walking down Main Street to the café for coffee. He heard her voice first before he saw her.

"You stole him from me," Norma seethed from behind him. "My son!"

He turned very slowly and looked at her. Remo was waiting down the street in the truck and already had his door partially opened. "He's my brother."

"You had no right!"

Dylan doesn't say anything back but continues on to the coffee shop with his hands in tight fists.

"I'll get him back," Norma promised in a shrill voice.

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The pills made Norman drowsy during the day. The first couple of days spent on them left him struggling to stay awake, flipping through pages of books numbly. Eventually he begun taking them in the evening instead, under Dylan's surveillance.

They also left him edgy and emotional. Dylan wasn't really sure how to handle the emotional side of Dylan that wasn't based on anger or awkwardness.

He'd find him huddled inside a closet trembling, cringing as he tried to pull him out. Norman reacted defensively, trying to slap Dylan's hands away. Hours would be spent trying to lure him out and it took him longer than it shoulder have to understood exactly why Norman flinched and silently protested.

They're sitting across from the table and Norman is clicking the pen when he finally asks. "Did Norma ever hit you?"

Norman stares at him wordlessly for a few moments, halting in his anxious actions. "What do you mean?"

"I mean did she ever hurt you."

"Why?"

"Because if she did, you need to know that you didn't deserve it." He's startled his brother, he can tell the way Norman's not answering a single thing and is watching his like if he isn't careful, Dylan will lash out and hit him. "She shouldn't have hurt you."

He's freaking out, hyperventilating and trying to get away from Dylan when he wrestles the damn puffer to Norman's lips and forces him to breath. It takes Norman a few seconds to take the blue inhaler for himself and properly use it. "It doesn't matter," he tells Dylan later when he's properly breathing and he's got a glass of water before him. "She never meant it."

Norman's voice is hoarse and tired and all that Dylan wants to do is fix everything. At this rate, he thought as he watched Norman watch him, he'd be better off beating Norma senseless for what she did. "It does."

He refuses to let his brother leave the small kitchen table that wobbles slightly when leaned on. They sit in silence together until slowly Norman allows Dylan to draw out bitter pain. It comes out in pieces, like rusted nails and slowly he spits them up like a bloody mess- ("she liked bath time. she liked touching me." norman said very quietly, very carefully. Waiting for disgust that never came.)

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Norman tries three times to run away. The first time Dylan catches him almost immediately because he's noisy as hell. He heard the bathroom window bang open which makes him very aware of how easy it is to jump out and onto the little garden shed directly below, and then from there onto the ground. The second time Norman took off after a fight, one that left them both shouting and raging.

Dylan punched a wall when Norman demanded to go back, claiming he was done with this stupid façade because why does he even care?

Norman's fast on his feet and the house that Dylan picked out was for the reason that it was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees. It takes him long enough to catch him but he manages, finding him sitting alone in the woods a perfect mess. They don't say much after that, because they're done. Dylan's frustrated and Norman's tired but they move on from that little clearing and back into their lives.

He's enrolled in a small high school two towns past their small little house. At first he dragged his feet, refusing to go and insisting on the prospects of homeschooling. Dylan refused because it wasn't healthy and maybe Norman needed to be normal for once, do something he wanted to do. Every school day he drove him to school on his bike, something that later became a habit. Norman eventually joined the track team (after Dylan had informed the coach of his asthma and gave him strict demands of what Norman wouldn't do.) (he wanted the kid to grow a little, not die in the process.)

Eventually Norman gets a little frustrated, slowly pushing at Dylan's rules and exploring the boundaries. It leaves Dylan stressed and overwhelmed as he battles him over such minor issues-Norman wants to go out for a bit but refuses to say where, refuses to take his phone or inhaler no matter how much he insists and it drives him _insane_.

"He's testing you," Remo informed him when he hesitantly brought it up. "Waiting to see where you draw the line and where you smack him."

Dylan questions it hours afterwards and doesn't know what to do when he finds the scars of Norman's wrists. Suddenly everything makes sense and is clear and it shouldn't have to be this way. He wants his brother to trust him, because he's just trying to do the right thing for once in his life/

Norman does trust him.

The evening after Dylan discovered the scars and the razors he finds Norman pacing the hallway with a tiny little box tight in his hands. They stare at each other in an odd manner, unblinking and silent. Slowly he holds out the wooden box and hands it to Dylan without a single word before turning away and returning to his bedroom.

The little box had contained exactly three razors that had left him pondering the significance of the number. Was each razor a representation of the warped little family or was it something more?

He never asked and that was alright between the two of them.

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The third time he thinks Norman ran away when he really hadn't.

He's in his office at work briefing over the plans for a new field that Jody had sent him earlier when an alarm goes off from his phone. He cursed at the noise as he scrambles for his keys and wallet, already shouting for Remo to get a group to comb the woods because it'll take him thirty minutes to get anywhere close to the house and Norman is a goddamn fox when he wants to be.

Dylan tries not to feel hurt that Norman ran away because he shouldn't. He was never part of the family and that's the entire point of everything.

On arriving in the house with the door swinging wide open reveals three things that alarm him.

One, Norman never wore his shoes or jacket. Two, a quick glance reveals that all of the pills bottles and inhalers are still sitting on his desk. Three, he can smell the perfume hanging in the air and the bedsheets are rumpled in the wrong way and Dylan hopes to God he's reading too far into this.

Remo and Dylan hike deep into the woods, tracking the slight indents of footsteps in soft Earth as the go. They're bristling with anxiety and can barely contain themselves as they come across two of the other guys, each of them leveling guns at each other before recognizing that they weren't Norma and had to keep looking.

"I don't want him to see violence," Dylan tells Remo very softly as the inspect the mossy ground. He remembers dead teachers who violated Norman, and it doesn't matter that Norman killed her in the end. In his mind he separates his brother as the kid who likes to read too much and doesn't know how to stick up for himself properly from the kid who gets lost in black outs and is capable of being managed by pills. "Violence will get him upset."

"He still want to go back with her?" Remo asks cautiously.

He shrugged. "Norman doesn't talk about her much lately."

They find Norman and Norma at the end because Dylan made a promise that he would protect his brother and not let him get hurt again. Its pure luck that every one of the search groups find the two all at once, holding guns out and gazing out with angry faces. Jody's there with her gun, watching very carefully as Norma holds a knife to Norman's throat.

"You don't get to do this," she informs Dylan, "you don't get to ruin this family!"

"Get off it," he practically growled. "Your idea of family is fucked up."

She's ranting and raving, waving the knife around violently. Norman suddenly lurches forward low, the momentum pulling her down hard and he slips away. At that moment everyone moves forward as well and Jody pulls him behind her as the men swarm Norma.

Dylan lets them because he can't just rip Norma's goddamn throat out in front of Norman because that will only do nothing at all.

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"You want to talk about it?"

"No."

"You know I'm here, right?"

For a brief second he considers asking for his razors before he forces the desire down. "I know."

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(Norman's still a little broken but that's okay because Dylan's the expert of being broken.)

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End file.
